Congratulations to our final year PhD student, Thomas Killestein who is an author on a paper titled 'The Birth of a Relativistic Jet Following the Disruption of a Star by a Cosmological Black HoleLink opens in a new window' which has been published in Nature Astronomy.

Thomas tells us "The object itself is a black hole feeding on a star, and at peak was around 20 trillion times more luminous than that of our Sun, in an extreme example of astrophysics. the black hole is shredding a star similar to our own Sun, which forms a disc of material around the black hole, before ejecting material in jets at almost the speed of light, in one of the most energetic events ever seen."

The research has been undertaken by a global team, who conducted analysis of this newly discovered object across the electromagnetic spectrum. Thomas' focus was helping with ground-based infrared observations, remotely observing from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) New Technology Telescope (NTT) as part of the ePESSTO+ collaboration.

"While there are many theories as to what powers these energetic events, the vast energies of the jets seen in this system don't fit neatly into our understanding of the phenomena, so the puzzle continues. It's been amazing to be part of the research into this example of extreme astrophysics."

Professor Emma MacPherson was on Sky News International showcasing a new skin scanner which has the potential to transform the way skin cancer is detected and treated. Using pulses of light from the terahertz part of the light spectrum it will detect how far cancer that is not visible has spread under the skin. This will mean that surgical removal can be better planned, more effective and faster. This in turn will reduce patient waiting times and improve patient outcomes as well as reduce costs to the NHS.

Watch the Sky News video.

This is the first simultaneous detection of kink oscillations of coronal loops with EUI on board the Solar Orbiter and AIA/SDO.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the operation of the UK’s XMaS (X-ray Materials Scattering) user facility at the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble. It has been directed for all that time from Warwick and Liverpool University Physics Departments and has provided hundreds of UK scientists (and many from further afield) with the opportunity to do leading research in a truly world-leading international centre.

XMaS came about when the first of the world’s ultra-bright synchrotrons was being designed and built in Grenoble, France in the early nineties. The ESRF’s bending magnets were originally designed to simply steer the electron beam around the synchrotron ring between the newly developed insertion devices. It was soon realised that they were a potent source of synchrotron radiation which could exploited as new beamlines if funded by national groups. The UK took advantage, with Malcolm Cooper, here at Warwick, and Bill Stirling, first at Keele and then Liverpool, asked to devise a plan and to bid for EPSRC funds. Needless to say the first back-of-the-envelope designs were, with hindsight, rather naive and embarrassingly under-costed but detailed design work by our small project team generated a viable blueprint, which has since stood the test of time.

When it opened for users in the autumn of 1997 it was never, in our wildest dreams, envisaged that it might be still operational 25 years later. Of course XMaS has undergone a continuous programme of improvement and upgrades over the years with including developing sophisticated sample environments and advances in x-ray metrology. A major refurbishment was necessitated by the recent comprehensive upgrade of the ESRF and as a consequence we now have what is virtually a new beamline and fit for purpose for many years to come.

Initially the science case for the beamline was devoted for the study of magnetic materials, very much in vogue in the 1990s. In fact the acronym XMaS stood for X-ray Magnetic Scattering but the facility has since evolved to encompass a broader materials programme (polymers, liquid crystals, catalysts, etc.) using a variety of techniques (spectroscopies, wide and small angle scattering etc.). The facility has four permanent staff and two postdocs on site, who carry out their own research as well as help the visiting research groups run a very diverse range of experiments. Following the retirement of Malcolm Cooper in 2010, XMaS has been led from Warwick by Tom Hase with admin support from Sarah Jarratt.

It's finally here, the new molecular viewer "AniMol" (ANImated MOLecules) is in beta for free public use. AniMol allows you to create interactive views of molecular structures or dynamics thereof and then gives a permanent link and QR code image for access from anywhere, including on mobile devices. For example, check out the #sarscov2 spike proteins' plausible opening/closing motion at https://lnkd.in/ec7RpSyz or https://lnkd.in/eyT_DpEx.

AniMol was created by current Maths and Physics 3rd year student James Panayis working with recent Warwick Physics graduate James Partington and Prof. Rudo Roemer from theory group. Their work has been funded in part by a Warwick InnovationsLink opens in a new window "Impact Acceleration Account" fund.

Dr John Marshall and Dr John Back are working as part of the AIDAinnova programme to further the development of the Pandora pattern-recognition software. They are developing algorithms to interpret highly-complex images of neutrino interactions in the detectors that will be deployed for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, DUNE. Their software uses a careful blend of sophisticated clustering algorithms and machine-learning approaches.

The Pandora software aims to provide an automated approach to reconstruct what happened in neutrino interactions, and so help unlock the mysteries of neutrinos. One of the defining features of DUNE will be its cutting-edge detectors, and the role of pattern recognition and machine learning is becoming more important to interpret the detector outputs. Under the AIDAinnova programme, Dr Marshall and Dr Back are adapting the Pandora software specifically for use at the DUNE Near Detector.

Dr Marshall says “Through AIDAinnova, we’re collaborating with other teams across Europe: to develop software for future detectors, and to help include the Pandora software in a reusable “turnkey” software stack, designed for easy use at future particle physics experiments.”

AIDAinnova is co-ordinated through CERN. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab is the host laboratory for DUNE, in partnership with funding agencies and more than 1,000 scientists from all over the globe.

Find out more about AIDAinnova project by watching The AIDAinnova project video.  

25 April 2022.